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Horticultural therapy at Mamre House

In northern Liberia the leaves of sweet potato are harvested, but not the tuber. I learned this from Wemoy Koholo who was picking a bunch of sweet potato leaves from her plot at Mamre House in Western Sydney when I visited.

Mamre House is a unique community experiment in horticultural therapy. Based on the knowledge that gardening is restorative and nurturing, and that food is comfort and culture, Mamre Farm rents quarter-acre plots to refugee, migrant and community groups for a nominal fee so they can grow the foods that are important to them. Mamre was established in the early years of the 19th century as a model farm by Reverend Samuel Marsden, who was known as the ‘flogging parson’. This is not quite the model Marsden had in mind, but it’s worth following.

Groups from Vietnam, South Africa and Egypt have previously been involved with the farm, and currently families from Burma, Sudan and Liberia are growing food at Mamre. Two more plots are available. Michael Manning is the farm manager. “It’s very rewarding work,” he says. “You do see how the farm helps people get over the crises they went through to get here.” It’s also a mutually beneficial arrangement. “I learn about how they grow their food, and I teach them about growing the Western produce they’re not familiar with,” says Manning. Not that he’s had much luck convincing the Liberian ladies of the charms of beetroot.

Rosella is a different story. Elizabeth Htoo grows rosella, Hibiscus sabdariffa, at Mamre and harvests the leaves to sell to the Burmese community. In Burmese cooking, the lemony flavoured leaves are fried up with shrimp paste but Htoo didn’t realise that rosella fruit was worth eating until she tried rosella jam and rosella cordial at a Mamre market day.

Elizabeth working in her rosella patch.

In Koholo’s plot there is taro (grown for the leaves, not the tuber), pea eggplants and African eggplants, which are called bitter balls in Liberia, for immediately obvious reasons. There are also less familiar foods, such as mulukhiyah, also called Egyptian leaf. It’s a traditional staple in the Middle East and North Africa, used in soups and stews. When boiled the leaves have a bitter flavour and slippery, slimy texture a bit like okra.

Gardening and cooking tips are shared, money is earned, English improves but for Koholo the number one benefit of the farm project is through food’s connection to culture. She came to Australia with her husband, two children, and their neighbour’s son eight years ago, escaping the horrors of the Liberian civil war. And that’s one reason she won’t consider sweet potato tubers. They are food for desperate times. “We only ate them in the war,” she explains. Every day she cooks something for the family that she has grown at the farm. “I want our children to know the culture,” she says, “the language and the food.” Tonight she’s taking home mulukhiyah and bitter balls – and those sweet potato leaves.

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2 thoughts on “Horticultural therapy at Mamre House”

Natalie Filatoffsays:

Fascinating to learn how different cultures value different parts of plants than the fruit or tubers that we use in our dishes! And so glad to hear that horticulture is helping people who have fled traumatic situations to remain in touch with their cultures in a healing way. An inspiring story.

You’re right, it was terrifically inspiring to visit. Everyone seemed to be getting so much out of it. When I drove home I had the news on the radio but had to turn it off so I could bask in the feeling that the world was a good and kind place for just a bit longer!